5 ms·

And for a welding operator to become a physical therapist is an even larger leap. Also, there's also a lot of resistance (and prejudice) in going from blue-col

by aylons 10y ago

And for a welding operator to become a physical therapist is an even larger leap. Also, there's also a lot of resistance (and prejudice) in going from blue-collar to pink-collar, partly because care and health services are seem as feminine jobs(except doctors, of course).

knieveltech 10y ago
Hard to have much sympathy for someone who's strangling themselves with their own gender stereotypes.
- kamau 10y ago
  Often times it's not the worker that strangle themselves. I remember reading some years ago (can't remember where) about the struggles that male nurses have. Male patients often refuse male nurses as they don't want another male to see their bodies, and female patients will refuse male nurses out of modesty. And, according to the same source the problem only intensifies as the male nurse gets older.
- Moshe_Silnorin 10y ago
  Universalize that statement and apply it to X demographic not choosing a STEM degree and you'll find yourself in a struggle session.
  - knieveltech 10y ago
    So alter my statement and get a different meaning and outcome? Right-o.
- maratd 10y ago
  > strangling themselves with their own gender stereotypes Those stereotypes exist for a reason. No matter how much you pretend otherwise, differences between men and women exist. That's why we refer to one as men and one as women. Because they're different. They will naturally gravitate toward specific industries and tasks. Lecturing people because of their natural preferences is juvenile.
- pasquinelli 10y ago
  it may be hard but you should do it. everyone is hurt by misogyny, not just women, and often it's through a narrowing what is seen as possible.
vostok 10y ago
Are there any programs to help get men into nursing and similar professions? That seems like a great idea.
dllthomas 10y ago
My brother recently finished nursing school. The number of times he got the question, "you're gonna be a male nurse?" ... He had a number of cute responses.
- tptacek 10y ago
  The prejudice and stereotyping here is ridiculous, but honestly, I think something that needs to happen (for a variety of reasons) is for the term "nurse" to be retired, and replaced with something like "medical associate". The nursing profession is extraordinarily important, and we underutilize it in this country. Most of us should be talking to "nurses" much more frequently than we do, and much more often than we talk to doctors.
  - jdmichal 10y ago
    I agree with the idea that utilizing highly-trained physicians for basic health care is a misallocation of resources. Nurse practitioners and physician associates [0] should and have been receiving more autonomy in providing basic care. They have enough training to do so, and should be capable of recognizing when a referral is required. [0] Also known as "physician assistant", which is a terrible name when making a case for autonomy...
  - kwhitefoot 10y ago
    What's wrong with nurse? It has a quite specific meaning. Changing it medical associate just makes it less precise. What's needed is for sexism to be eradicated everywhere; changing the names is not going to do that.
    - pasquinelli 10y ago
      i agree that sexism needs to be eradicated everywhere, and i don't honestly believe shuffling terminology is a very significant move, but to be fair the word nurse is a gendered one: besides meaning to care for someone, it also refers to the same general concept in a more specific circumstance, that is, breastfeeding.
    - 10y ago
VLM 10y ago
There's a lot of hand wringing comments about the demand side but don't forget the supply side. Jobs come with a lot of baggage. Could I make a good doctor in an abstract sense? Hell yes, I thrive at diagnosing complicated technical systems under pressure working closely with people. However I am sensitive to lack of sleep and when I inevitably kill someone during my training hazing when you have to work 36 straight hours without sleep, I'd... react rather poorly to having killed them over basically being too much of a coward to say F that hazing tradition. So I can't become a doctor. The problem would be the hazing but the firing paperwork would be some BS like culture fit, and I'm smart enough to predict the whole thing so I'm not even gonna try. A pity, I'd be a hell of a good doc. Likewise we've loaded the psychology of nursing with certain baggage that only a fraction of the population is going to tolerate. The reason the supply of nurses is limited is not because we lack for the technical ability to learn to give sponge baths or ability to follow surgeons orders to assist them. I think we pretty much have all the people nursing who can fit the precise psychological cookie cutter of stereotypical nurse and folks who don't fit that cutter will have their money taken in classrooms but they'll get weeded out of the field. Leading to "how we gonna retrain these excess unemployable nurses?" and maybe we'll torture them with some other field requiring a unique unusual personality, like psychologist or chef, and when they fail that, we'll collect tuition retraining all of them to be ... We're only allowed culturally to talk about changing employees never changing the employer or the workplace itself. Which is unfortunately the thing most needing changing now. So its a forbidden thought to consider that the problem is we need to accept drill sgt like nurses and construction dude like nurses not just nurse like nurses. Or its a forbidden thought that I could become an ER doc without the required lack of sleep hazing. But if you want to actually fix broken systems sometimes you need to at least think about forbidden thoughts. A world where its safe to question why a nurse can't tell a patient to F themselves when they need to be told to F themselves or where its safe to question why a new doc needs to go thru hazing at the cost of patient lives is a better world. Its not exclusively about convincing students to enter fields where everyone knows they're not gonna fit and then shrugging shoulders when they inevitably don't fit and wash out. Sometimes fields suck and need fixing.

by aylons 10y ago

knieveltech 10y ago

Hard to have much sympathy for someone who's strangling themselves with their own gender stereotypes.

kamau 10y ago
Often times it's not the worker that strangle themselves. I remember reading some years ago (can't remember where) about the struggles that male nurses have. Male patients often refuse male nurses as they don't want another male to see their bodies, and female patients will refuse male nurses out of modesty. And, according to the same source the problem only intensifies as the male nurse gets older.
Moshe_Silnorin 10y ago
Universalize that statement and apply it to X demographic not choosing a STEM degree and you'll find yourself in a struggle session.
- knieveltech 10y ago
  So alter my statement and get a different meaning and outcome? Right-o.
maratd 10y ago
> strangling themselves with their own gender stereotypes Those stereotypes exist for a reason. No matter how much you pretend otherwise, differences between men and women exist. That's why we refer to one as men and one as women. Because they're different. They will naturally gravitate toward specific industries and tasks. Lecturing people because of their natural preferences is juvenile.
pasquinelli 10y ago
it may be hard but you should do it. everyone is hurt by misogyny, not just women, and often it's through a narrowing what is seen as possible.

vostok 10y ago

Are there any programs to help get men into nursing and similar professions? That seems like a great idea.

dllthomas 10y ago

My brother recently finished nursing school. The number of times he got the question, "you're gonna be a male nurse?" ... He had a number of cute responses.

tptacek 10y ago
The prejudice and stereotyping here is ridiculous, but honestly, I think something that needs to happen (for a variety of reasons) is for the term "nurse" to be retired, and replaced with something like "medical associate". The nursing profession is extraordinarily important, and we underutilize it in this country. Most of us should be talking to "nurses" much more frequently than we do, and much more often than we talk to doctors.
- jdmichal 10y ago
  I agree with the idea that utilizing highly-trained physicians for basic health care is a misallocation of resources. Nurse practitioners and physician associates [0] should and have been receiving more autonomy in providing basic care. They have enough training to do so, and should be capable of recognizing when a referral is required. [0] Also known as "physician assistant", which is a terrible name when making a case for autonomy...
- kwhitefoot 10y ago
  What's wrong with nurse? It has a quite specific meaning. Changing it medical associate just makes it less precise. What's needed is for sexism to be eradicated everywhere; changing the names is not going to do that.
  - pasquinelli 10y ago
    i agree that sexism needs to be eradicated everywhere, and i don't honestly believe shuffling terminology is a very significant move, but to be fair the word nurse is a gendered one: besides meaning to care for someone, it also refers to the same general concept in a more specific circumstance, that is, breastfeeding.
  - 10y ago

VLM 10y ago

There's a lot of hand wringing comments about the demand side but don't forget the supply side. Jobs come with a lot of baggage. Could I make a good doctor in an abstract sense? Hell yes, I thrive at diagnosing complicated technical systems under pressure working closely with people. However I am sensitive to lack of sleep and when I inevitably kill someone during my training hazing when you have to work 36 straight hours without sleep, I'd... react rather poorly to having killed them over basically being too much of a coward to say F that hazing tradition. So I can't become a doctor. The problem would be the hazing but the firing paperwork would be some BS like culture fit, and I'm smart enough to predict the whole thing so I'm not even gonna try. A pity, I'd be a hell of a good doc. Likewise we've loaded the psychology of nursing with certain baggage that only a fraction of the population is going to tolerate. The reason the supply of nurses is limited is not because we lack for the technical ability to learn to give sponge baths or ability to follow surgeons orders to assist them. I think we pretty much have all the people nursing who can fit the precise psychological cookie cutter of stereotypical nurse and folks who don't fit that cutter will have their money taken in classrooms but they'll get weeded out of the field. Leading to "how we gonna retrain these excess unemployable nurses?" and maybe we'll torture them with some other field requiring a unique unusual personality, like psychologist or chef, and when they fail that, we'll collect tuition retraining all of them to be ... We're only allowed culturally to talk about changing employees never changing the employer or the workplace itself. Which is unfortunately the thing most needing changing now. So its a forbidden thought to consider that the problem is we need to accept drill sgt like nurses and construction dude like nurses not just nurse like nurses. Or its a forbidden thought that I could become an ER doc without the required lack of sleep hazing. But if you want to actually fix broken systems sometimes you need to at least think about forbidden thoughts. A world where its safe to question why a nurse can't tell a patient to F themselves when they need to be told to F themselves or where its safe to question why a new doc needs to go thru hazing at the cost of patient lives is a better world. Its not exclusively about convincing students to enter fields where everyone knows they're not gonna fit and then shrugging shoulders when they inevitably don't fit and wash out. Sometimes fields suck and need fixing.